Where Ideas Grow

Nuno Alves appointed ambassador of EJI

The researcher Nuno Alves, leader of the Thymus Development and Function group, was recently invited to join the Editorial Board of the scientific journal European Journal of Immunology (EJI). The immunologist joins the current team of this scientific journal of reference in the history of Immunology.

The publication includes in its editorial board great names in the field of Immunology, encompassing basic, translational and clinical research. It was, therefore, “a great honor” for Nuno Alves to have received this invitation: “I see this extra function as a challenge of great responsibility and also as a sign of recognition of the scientific work developed by me and by my current and past collaborators at the laboratory”.

Over the next two years, Nuno Alves will be an EJI Ambassador and will also advise the editorial staff regarding scientific articles for publication. It will also be up to the i3S immunologist to identify new scientific discoveries and propose topics or researchers that deserve to be highlighted in the journal through perspective or review articles.

Researcher Nuno Alves has been doing pioneering work in the area of the thymus, an organ that produces and educates T lymphocytes, the cells of our immune system that trigger specific immune responses against virtually all foreign threats, such as viruses, without damaging our tissues. He has won several awards and national and international projects, namely a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant in 2014. He is currently the coordinator of one of the ERA Chair projects, the “ImmunoHUB”, assigned to i3S under the Widening action of Horizon 2020 of the European Commission.

With a degree in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, Nuno Alves joined in 2000 the Graduate Program in Areas of Basic and Applied Biology (GABBA), having completed his PhD at the University of Amsterdam, in the field of Immunology. He later won a post-doctoral fellowship awarded from EMBO, which allowed him to continue his research at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. In 2010, Nuno Alves returned to Portugal, more specifically to IBMC, which is now integrated into the i3S, and in 2013 he became the leader of the Thymus Development and Function group.